


Goodnight

by sheriffgreene



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pining, flint ships it, just fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4913047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheriffgreene/pseuds/sheriffgreene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 Times Billy and Abigail say "goodnight", and one they don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I-III

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts for far too long. Given what we know from the new trailer, let's consider this a much happier AU for season 3.

I.

 

She’s carried into Captain Flint’s quarters. In another time, another day, she might have refused when she saw him, _Billy_ , stepping forward to where she slumped against the railing, coughing and wheezing and eyes watering from the smoke she’d just escaped. She might have been polite and thanked both him and the captain for their help; told them she was perfectly capable of walking on her own. But those times of propriety were left somewhere in London and today -today she’d seen Charles Town burn to the ground and found herself running away from the safety of her family to a ship filled with pirates. Today, she took comfort in not having to walk a single step with her torn and soaking wet dress and found safety in the solid arms of this man she’d yet to utter a word to.   
She’s deposited into a large chair in the corner of the room where she sits without protest as he takes a rag and begins to roughly wipe at the dirt she knows must cover her face. She must wince; as much as she tries to both hold completely still and avoid his eyes, she knows she’s moved in a way that makes him aware of himself and he abruptly stops moving.   
“Sorry,” she mutters. What she’s apologizing for, she doesn’t know but it makes him awkwardly pass the rag across her face twice more, gentle and self-conscious all at once before he stands; still staring down at her.   
She wonders if she should fill the silence, maybe thank him or ask where they’re going. She had no plan after all, nothing beyond escaping Charles Town and heading in the only familiar direction. He speaks first instead, tossing the rag from one hand to another as he begins to slowly back away, graceful despite his size.  
“Goodnight, Miss Ashe,” he says, before heading for the door. 

 

 

II.

 

He finds her one night on the empty deck, when news reaches them that Captain Vane has found Miss Guthrie and they are headed back to Nassau. It means, as she understands it, that Miss Guthrie will set order on the island and Captain Flint and his men (and herself) can expect a safe welcoming. The men are in good spirits, drinking below decks and she takes the moment of silence to get fresh air, staring into the pitch blackness of the sea as she allows her mind to catch up to the past days’ events.   
“Captain Flint was asking where you’d gone off to,”   
“I was just getting some air,” when she turns to look, she finds him mirroring her, leaning against the railing and looking out into the water. She manages to tear her gaze from him but still feels awkward, the silence demanding to be filled, if only for her sake.

“Where exactly did Captain Vane find Miss Guthrie?”

“London,” he replies quietly; his voice a much deeper baritone in the stillness of the night. “It’s where they were taking her, to be tried and hanged most likely.” 

“For piracy?” 

“For one. Treason, as well. Like all of us.” 

“I suppose that includes me now, doesn’t it?” She gives a half hearted laugh, but only when the words are out does she realize how true, how dangerous, they really are. And he must realize it too when he turns to stare intently at her, his eyes roaming her face the way they did the night they first saw each other. “I can never go back,” she doesn’t mean for it to come out a whisper, but somehow the revelation they’re both making seems to need the secrecy. 

A few more seconds pass and he lets his head hang from his shoulders, staring down at his forearms braced on the ship’s railing. 

“Do you want to?” 

It was a strange question to ask. It had been so long since she’d done anything because she _wanted to_ that she barely remembered what it felt like to make decisions that weren’t based on her chances of survival. 

“Both of my parents are dead now,” she swallows at the lump in her throat when she admits her grim situation out loud. “I have nothing in London but old school tutors and acquaintances that believe the stories of the monsters that sail these ships. I’ve nothing to go back to.”

He nods without looking at her, continuing to stare at nothing and it’s his silence that prompts the next question from her.

“Do you miss them?...Your parents?” the words are barely out of her mouth before he’s looking at her, eyes wide in confusion and a sort of defensiveness that made it seem like he was ready to run at any moment. She chastises herself for being so forward with a man she barely knows at all; speaking of what can only be painful memories. “I beg your pardon, Sir” she tries to amend; with her cheeks hot and red and she’s happy the night is so dark he might not be able to see her embarrassment. “I don’t mean to be indiscreet. Only, Captain Flint told me you haven’t seen them since you were a boy and I just wondered -does it get easier?” 

After a few beats of silence, she begins to realize she isn’t going to receive a response and instead, offers one of her own.

“I miss my father. Even after all he did; I forgive him.” She hopes to be discreet enough. To pretend Captain Flint hadn’t told her _all_ of his story, but she can’t help talk about forgiveness; can’t help but hope that _he_ can hope that his family has forgiven him too. 

He’s still facing her, possibly watching her, but with the cover of the night she doesn’t feel so exposed to look away. Instead, they stand in a comfortable silence that’s filled with the chatter and laughter of the men inside and the gentle _swoosh_ of the water below.  
“Goodnight, Sir,” she says quietly, as she steps back from the railing and makes her way back to her quarters.   


 

 

 

III.

 

There’s mere hours before they reach Nassau, she’s told, and she sits on deck watching the island grow closer and closer. Sailing to a future that had no certainty beyond Captain Flint promising that he’d find her accommodations. And while she trusted that the man wasn’t near the monster her father wrote to her about, she wasn’t too sure she wasn’t being held on to for a higher purpose. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t become dispensable when she was no longer convenient for the captain’s plans. 

Just below her, the men are loud and excited. Loudly making plans of drinks and women and even though their words were crude and made her blush, she couldn’t rightly begrudge them that. They’d all had a long and hard journey back home. 

_Home._

It was strange to think of this island that had once been her prison as her home now. Stranger still that she couldn’t wish it any other way. 

A roar of laughter tears her from her thoughts and sends her gaze to the group of men below her as they laugh and clap Billy Bones ( _William Manderly_ ,as the captain had told her just a few nights before) on the back; in a conversation she’d missed. 

“Oh come on, Billy! We all know you’ve got big plans as soon as we get to Nassau. I bet Esther’s feeling a bit neglected.” 

At the comment, Billy shoots the man a look who holds his hands up and grins. 

“Alright then, Bones. Nothing but respect for the _lady._ Give her my regards though, yeah?” 

Another howl of laughter erupts from the men and even Billy cracks a small smile, albeit shaking his head in disapproval. He’s looking away from the men, glancing around the deck aimlessly when his eyes fall on hers and she think she may have actually gasped out loud at being caught staring. And like the first time it happened, she promptly drops her gaze to her lap and the book in it, her face feeling hot. 

So Mr. Manderly had a...well a _someone_ , she supposed. A woman. A woman waiting for him and missing him on the long journeys away. Someone he undoubtedly missed as well and here she was; with silly flips in her stomach at the sight of him and stares so long that even Captain Flint had taken notice. _What a child she was_ , she scolded herself. 

For the last minutes of the trip, she focused on her book without ever actually reading a word of it; her mind trapped in a strange limbo between thinking of nothing at all and pondering everything that could await her on the island. 

Finally, it was Captain Flint’s voice that alerted her; made her realize the ship had docked and the men were climbing out eager and joyously. 

“You’ll be staying in Lady Hamilton’s old home; as soon as it’s properly arranged for you to move in,” the captain informed her as he tugged his jacket on. “You can stay at the inn tonight. Billy will walk you.” 

Her eyes went wide and she looked across the deck, where the man in question was busying himself with the ropes that held the small boats for disembarking. She had no reason to flee from him, she was sure. But knowing what she’d overheard made her want to stay away. Out of embarrassment, perhaps. 

“Thank you, Captain. But I really don’t think that’ll be necessary; I’m sure I can remember my way.” 

“I don’t want to take any chances,” he signals across the deck to Billy, who’d been attentive to the conversation as soon as his name had first come up, and motions for him to come closer. “Billy, see to it that Miss Ashe gets to the inn safely.” 

“Yes, Captain,” he says slowly and the look of consternation on his face as Captain Flint walks away would have been comical if it didn’t mirror her own.

“You don’t have to-” she begins as he motions for her to walk on ahead of him and they both stop to look at one another. She refuses to feel silly over what she heard any longer, so she tries to stand a little taller as she speaks. 

“I wouldn’t want to make you late, sir,” Billy’s brow furrows. She tilts her head a bit in response. “I couldn’t help overhearing that you’ve someone waiting for you at home? _Esther_?” she tries reminding him and Billy’s eyes go wide and then squint while he struggles to get any words out. Instead he opens his mouth a few times with no results. 

“She’s not -it’s not...I’ve no one waiting for me,” he gets out finally. “Besides, Captain’ll have my head if he hears I didn’t follow orders.”

She smiles at him; and if she bats her eyelashes just a bit she swears it’s only to convince him to let her go so he can be on his way. On his way to a woman, she reminds herself. 

“I promise that I will stand up for you, should he ask. Tell him it was all my fault.” 

He’s eyeing her skeptically, crossing his arms in front of him but says nothing and so she takes that as a won battle. In a moment of what she can only describe as sheer madness, she reaches out to touch him; just barely place her hand on his forearm as a parting gesture. Who knew, after all, when she would see him again. 

“Goodbye, Mr. Manderly.”

She’s already off the deck when she finally hears him call out, “Good night, Miss Ashe.”

 


	2. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Essentially these got way too long and I don't think it's fair to keep everyone waiting while I edit the last part when I already have so much written. Please comment, enjoy and pray with me so our sweet warrior princess comes back this season to be with Billy! :)

IV.

She couldn’t sail with them forever; she knew that. Still, she can’t help feeling a sadnessand resentment as if she’s being deliberately left behind; left to sit idly by in Lady Hamilton’s old home while everyone carried on as usual and went back to the sea. 

She spent the days leading up to Captain Flint and his men’s departure locked in her new home. Trying to combat the loneliness by making herself as busy as she could and keeping herself from missing the freedom she’d felt on that ship. Keeping herself from thinking she’d miss a certain man that would soon be sailing away on said ship for who knew how long. 

She fails miserably of course. She’s not five minutes into her needlework when her mind is full and cloudy with thoughts of him. Of his blue eyes carefully studying her from across a table the first night they met; or the way his hand felt -strong and work roughened and warm and sure- when he offered it some time ago to help her off the ship. It was a gesture that was strange and foreign to the pirate, but a far away instinct to the man she might have known in London society. She thinks briefly of the lives they might have had. If he’d stayed in Kensington and she at her father’s side and perhaps they’d met in a ballroom somewhere, or the parlour of her home. _Perhaps they might not have met at all_ , she suddenly realizes; the thought putting his impending departure into perspective.

She was being silly. She hardly knew Mr. Manderly at all and he knew her even less so. It’s ridiculous to be so concerned with his whereabouts when he surely doesn’t spare her a second thought. 

She’s sighed and shaken her head at her silliness at least half a dozen times. Berated herself twice as much, and so she welcomes the distraction of the knock at her door. Too eager to get moving about to have the usual feeling of dread when someone comes around the house; that this would be the day someone comes to take her back to London or a drunken stranger come to do her harm. In fairness, no one ever visited besides Captain Flint himself and on one occasion, Miss Guthrie.

It was neither of those familiar faces that greeted her when she flung the front door open. Instead, with one muscled forearm resting against the doorframe and the setting sun behind him, Billy Bones stood in front of her. 

“Mr. Manderly,” she says because she’s not sure she can articulate anything else, her thoughts flying a million miles per hour where she vaguely wonders if she’s thought of him so much she somehow willed him to appear on her doorstep. 

“Miss Ashe,” he mumbles back and casts his eyes down and his head bows slightly in greeting; another one of the gestures of the English gentleman from his hypothetical life. When his eyes meet hers again he glances quickly behind her and seems to remember why he was there at all. “I’m looking for the captain. I was told maybe was here.”

“He stays at the inn most days,” Abigail informs him and for a second it looks as if he might leave, so Abigail quickly steps back and opens the door further. “He did tell me he was stopping by today though, come in and wait if you’d like.”

He steps into the house tentatively and his observant gaze sweeps across the room quickly making Abigail self-conscious. Perhaps she should have tidied up more.

“Would you like some tea?”

* * *

 

He looks completely ridiculous. A tiny teacup dwarfed in his two large hands and everything about the house seems too small, suddenly. The chair is so low his knees are nearly to his chest, shoulders so broad she fears he may hit any of the four walls around them should he move the wrong way and although there’s a table between them, she swears she can feel the warmth radiating from his body. Or perhaps that’s the tension. They’ve hardly said a word to each other since she came back from the kitchen with a pot of tea and not for the first time, she glances nervously at the front door: praying for Captain Flint to return.

“We set sail tomorrow morning,” Billy says suddenly, clearing his throat and making Abigail jump in her chair. 

“Yes, I heard.” An awkward silence follows; and she tries again. “Where are you off to?”

“Captain has some...business with a ship sailing from France, we hope to intercept it in a few days’ time.” 

She knows they’re pirates. She knows the kind of work they do. And still she appreciates Billy filling her in on his work as vaguely as he can. Even if part of her wonders if it’s _shame_ instead of manners that makes him hesitate. 

“I do hope you’re successful,” she says sincerely, “and safe.”

He lifts his eyes from his small tea cup to meet her gaze and she tries to smile reassuringly.

“I’d rather like to see you come back in one piece,” she quickly amends, “all of you.”

He nods slowly, her words sinking in and he simply replies, “I’m tough to kill...we all are,” Abigail has a feeling his mind is on something very specific in his past that even in her prying she’s not privy to. She thinks of Mr. Silver, wincing in pain as he limps across decks and she knows the men she sailed with are full of horror stories and demons that she can scarcely imagine.

It’s later in the evening, after a few more moments of conversation between them that were littered with silences -some uncomfortable, some not- that Billy places his empty teacup back on the table and rises to his feet. Captain Flint had yet to make an appearance for the evening.

“I should get back,” he declares and she feels a dull ache in her chest at him leaving so soon; at him leaving for so long and again it felt like he was leaving _her._ Perhaps she should blame her father’s abandonment for her taking so personally every man that leaves to the sea and leaves her in comfort and safety and _loneliness._

He’s opened the front door, turned to say his good byes when she gets a mad idea that would only ever pass her lips in her current circumstance. Only a life amongst pirates, a life of _freedom_ let the thought into her mind. If she’d been in London, if he’d been living that life he might have had she would have never uttered the words she said next. 

“Will you visit, when you return?”

He blinks at her. She blushes and turns her gaze to the walls at his side. 

“I don’t know many people on the island. It would be...nice, to see a familiar face once ina while.” 

She’s bracing herself for rejection, for him to tell her it wouldn’t be proper or that people might talk but instead he nods, his mouth hanging open a little bit and he’s probably as confused by her outburst as she is. She can’t keep herself from smiling even if she feels silly for doing so but the silliness she feels at the prospect of seeing him again is one that fills her up with a warmth she hasn’t felt in so long that she welcomes it and clings to it tightly. It sends her on a whim to the tips of her toes so she’s pressing a quick, barely-there kiss to his cheek before she can talk herself out of it because it’s such a mad and improper thing to do. But then she’d seen and heard much worse since arriving in Nassau and for once she’s free to do this one reckless thing without a tutor or governess tutting her at every turn. This island, shocking and reckless, has given her the freedom to be sure and bold and look back into Billy Bones’s eyes that are wide but blazing and the blue flames in them lick at her feet and they burn and beg for her to move. Whether that be to retreat inside the safety of her new home or back toward the man in front of her, she doesn’t know. 

In the end, she decides one kiss is enough daring for one day and while she’s still close to his face, still has a hand on his arm, she finds her voice barely above a whisper, “Good night, Billy.”

She can’t bare to say good bye to him. Not when his life is dangerous and their future so uncertain. Instead she settles for good night and when she closes the door to a silent nod from him, she thinks maybe he can’t bare ‘good bye’s either. 


End file.
